I can see it on the other side, Larry. If it's Tuesday, we can't win against terrorists. If it's Wednesday, we can. I don't see it on the Kerry side. Lack of context will produce contradiction, no doubt. I'm afraid that most people will swallow the accusations about Kerry's self-contradictions because most people don't bother to go beyond the sound bite. So I voted for then voted against is a great accusation for Bush to raise, but it ignores the context of what was being voted for. And on it goes. I guess electoral politics always work the same way, and it works in both directions--I don't deny that at all. The half-truths, innuendoes, outright lies presented as truth--all of that crap is what makes politics something that I will never ever get into myself (although I've been tempted in local elections here in town).<br><br>

Right, he eventually votes against funding troops because Bush wouldn't raise taxes to "pay" for the 87 billion. Sacrifice the troops because he couldn't get a tax increase. Nice.<br><br>Dean Davis<br><br>-----<br>"I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." -- John Kerry (D) - May 3, 2003

There are more issues involved than that, I think. The 87 billion involved some 20 billion of non-military expenditures, and it wasn't just Kerry who didn't want to spend that. My point remains, I think: in general, and in this specific case, the sound bite destroys any sense of complexity. And like I said, that's true on both sides of any issue. IMHO it's a really silly way to run a political process. Not that I assume it's ever been better, although there are hints of it in some of what you hear and read about the past. The Lincoln Douglas debates, for instance, are not simple-minded sound bites. But then, I suspect that the same kind of mindless nonsense that we get existed even back then--we just don't hear about it, and you'd have to be an expert in the period to know it.<br><br>

There were plenty of cartoons back then which vilified Lincoln. A lot of people got all their politics from cartoons in the daily paper. Sort of like people who consider Zell Miller selling crazy as newsworthy.<br><br>luciferase is a four nineteener

Really there wasn't much more involved than that except this...<br>At the time of the vote Dean was coming on strong as the REAL Anti-War candidate. Dean's comment on the bill at the time was...<br>"if the president doesn't have a sufficient commitment to this operation to get rid of the $87 billion in tax cuts then we should vote no."<br>Kerry saw this and knew he was going to have to change his tune or Dean would gain momentum for the nomination since he was getting a lot of grass roots support and press support due to his anti-war stance. So the vote helped him in two ways. 1. Made him seem closer to the Dean ideology and 2. Bolstered his stance as anti-"Bush tax cut".<br>This was really the beginning, to me, of the Kerry becoming the anti-war candidate to try and take out Dean (which, of course, he did).<br><br>p.s. Don't forget, Edwards voted against it too for much the same reason.<br><br>Dean Davis<br><br>-----<br>"I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." -- John Kerry (D) - May 3, 2003

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